Showing their metal with green home

Aylmer couple opts for new steel technology in building their green home

From the outside, the 2,505-square-foot home looks like a typical contemporary build, but it's what's in the walls that makes this home unique. Special steel and polystyrene thermal panels eliminate the need for a wood frame and make the house energy efficient. The main-floor layout maximizes openness while still providing defined spaces.

Photograph by: Bruno Schlumberger
, The Citizen

When you think of steel construction, commercial buildings may come to mind. But one Aylmer couple has taken a chance on a new sustainable steel technology that reduces residential construction waste and increases their home's durability, all while keeping their budget intact.

Brian Allemekinders and Deirdre Yukich have been living in Wychwood, a quaint residential pocket of Aylmer just a stone's throw from the Ottawa River, since 2002. They owned a cute bungalow and were planning to tackle a green renovation, but instead took the opportunity to purchase a treed lot down the road to build a sustainable modern home from the ground up to house their growing family, now numbering four children between five and 18 years old.

However, their plans were delayed when they moved their family to Vietnam for four years through their work with the Canadian International Development Agency. While the transfer threw a wrench in the building, they continued to work on plans with their Toronto architect, Maria Denegri (dbstudio.ca), a member of their extended family, while they were away.

They were admittedly not wellversed in green home building. While in Vietnam, Yukich, in particular, took the time to immerse herself in stacks of books on energy-efficient construction techniques. Out of that research, which included having Yukich make a couple of trips back to Canada during their time away, the family put together a laundry list of green building staples, like passive solar design, bamboo flooring and geothermal heating.

But building with steel? That didn't occur to them until their research led them to local green builders The Healthiest Home (thehealthiesthome.com), who suggested they try a steel-panel technology new to Canada called K-tect (k-tect.com). Made with steel and expanded polystyrene, the panels are joined together with screws and adhesive spray foam to create the structural shell of the house.

Meant to surpass the structural strength and insulation qualities of traditional wood-frame construction, the K-tect system provides for an airtight building envelope with no thermal bridges from the exterior to interior.

Denegri considered the orientation of the home as an important factor in sustainable living, with the biggest factor being the location of the sun. To incorporate passive solar heating, she designed the home's biggest windows to face south. And to cool the house passively in the summer, she designed overhangs that protect the home from direct sunlight.

"The overhangs have been calibrated and designed in such a way that in the summer the sun does not go in at all," says Denegri. "And in the winter, the sun goes right through those windows and hits the concrete floor and warms it up."

The home, which took a year to complete, looks much like any other contemporary build - clean lines, copious windows, new energy-efficient appliances and lighting. What makes it special is what's hidden in the walls.

Speaking by phone from Las Vegas, Alaina Miller - who has owned K-test with her husband, Ken, since its inception in 2006 - explains the benefits of their structural, thermal panels. Miller says it's a step beyond anything that's out on the market today because it eliminates the need for wood when building the frame of the home - and their expanded polystyrene is not like the Styrofoam used in packaging or food containers. It's a proprietary blend and contains no chemicals, so it doesn't off-gas, Miller says.

"It's resistant to fire, mould and mildew and if there were to be a fire, it would just resist the flame. If it was hot enough, (the polystyrene) would simply just melt. But the steel, which is the structure, would still stand."

Building a sustainable home was a priority for the couple, but they were also adamant about sticking to a strict budget.

Miller says the cost of K-tect panels should be on par with traditional wood-framed homes. In Allemekinders and Yukich's case, the cost was around five-per-cent more, but they also had them shipped from Las Vegas. Soon, the panels will be manufactured in Canada, which will cut the cost and the environmental impact of shipping the panels.

While Allemekinders and Yukich had found an architect, they still needed builders who shared the same sustainable philosophy. After holding an informal design competition, they decided in 2009 on The Healthiest Home (THH). Using the K-tect technology suggested by THH was an attractive option given the potential long-term savings on heating and cooling costs, but also the fact The Healthiest Home is the first company in the city to use the panels.

Now the couple refers to the house as hyper-efficient, with bills that are half the price of their old home, despite being double the size.

K-tect installed the panels, then THH took over the rest of the construction and sourced all the sustainable materials, like 100-per-cent recycled rubber roof shingles and no-VOC paints. Some of the products were sourced from their new store, a 4,000-square-foot shop on Laperriere Avenue, near Carling and Kirkwood avenues, where they carry an array of green building supplies.

THH owners and business partners Rebecca Best and Tosh Serafini, who basically act as green building consultants, are always searching for the best green products. Serafini says they were researching other styles of panels, but knew they had the product they wanted to work with when they discovered K-test at a building show in Toronto. They chose it because of better pricing and because it's easy to work with.

"The way that the insulation is integrated into the (steel) structural members (means it) can be formed to almost any shape, vertical shape, so round walls, curved walls what have you, without compromising the structure, or the R value (thermal quality)," says Serafini. "It's a simple (method) that allows you to do whatever you want to it without increasing costs."

He believes steel-panel systems are the future of building, so much so that he and Best have secured the Canadian rights to K-tect. They plan on manufacturing the panels in Ottawa by fall or early winter.

They are sold on it because it creates little to no waste and increases productivity.

"The building goes up much much quicker with the vapour barrier already built in and ready for windows. The house in Aylmer, we had the thing up in nine days," says Serafini, who estimates it would have taken six weeks to build the wood frame.

He says the overall benefit of green building in general is excellent indoor air quality. The couple's heat recovery ventilation system, for instance, reduces condensation and provides fresh air and improved climate control.

"I swear, everyone is healthy and my son Riel has sinus problems ... and he hasn't had a problem this winter. We are so happy just in terms of our health," says Yukich, standing beside the beautiful open staircase with glass railings and a spectacular custom designed base created by Denegri's architect husband, Tom Bessai, who worked in Frank Gehry's firm in Los Angeles for a few years. The organic curves - made from 150 individually cut pieces of plywood - show his work is inspired by his former mentor.

"In many residential projects, people don't really recognize opportunities for people to do something special or unique, so we are always looking for a way to produce something extraordinary and Deirdre and Brian were certainly game," says Bessai, who left the rest of the home's design to his wife. "We tried many variations for the base of the stairs ... when we went with the most radical thing, they loved it."

While the couple subscribes to the theory of building small spaces, they also had to acknowledge the fact six people would be living in the home. Still, Denegri managed to keep the square footage at 2,505 with a layout that maximizes the openness of the main living area while still providing defined and separate kitchen, dining and living areas. The second floor has four bedrooms, all with 14-foot vaulted ceilings to add to the sense of space. The master bedroom is equipped with a luxurious ensuite that includes a double custom glass shower along with a large walk-in closet space. It also boasts a balcony hideaway for warm summer nights.

"The key is in making people realize that you don't actually have to live in a huge house to feel like you have space," says Denegri. "It feels incredibly spacious. It has to do with the ceiling heights; it has to do with the volumes; it has to do with how you introduce light - (and) the way you flow from one activity into the next."

Given the final cost of building their new home ended up being $237 a square foot, they want others who are thinking about building to know that designing a sustainable, energy-efficient home does not need to be expensive, boring, traditional or leave the occupants esthetically wanting.

"Our hope is that our project (will) motivate other people to try new, alternative approaches to building residential homes in Canada," Allemekinders says. "We believe strongly that there is no reason to have not evolved past the traditional residential building methods and materials that have been in constant use for the past 100 years."

Story Tools

From the outside, the 2,505-square-foot home looks like a typical contemporary build, but it's what's in the walls that makes this home unique. Special steel and polystyrene thermal panels eliminate the need for a wood frame and make the house energy efficient. The main-floor layout maximizes openness while still providing defined spaces.

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